04 Broadcaster Press January 31, 2012 www.broadcasteronline.com Case fills valuable theatric role behind the scenes By Travis Gulbrandson travis.gulbrandson@plaintalk.net Tim Case grew up in the theatre. Literally. “My dad was a director, and so I’ve been in plays my whole life,” he said. “I was onstage when I was a baby. In ‘Little Women,’ I played a baby who was born, and I was Wally in ‘Our Town,’ and whatever had a little boy, I always had those roles.” As he grew older, he took a place behind the scenes, serving for the past 25 years as a professor of theatre and scenic design at the University of South Dakota. Following the lead of retired professor Dennis Chandler, the university was one of the first schools in the country to incorporate audio and visual technological advances into its program. “That’s been our niche – we do a lot for our size,” Case said. “I’m friends with a number of people from other universities, and they’re always surprised to see what we do here. South Dakota has a regional if not national reputation now because of the projects that we’ve accomplished.” A native of Oxnard, CA, Case grew up involved in a variety of theatre projects thanks to his father – an interest that continued after his family moved to the Midwest. “When I was in high school, my family moved to Iowa, where they were originally from, way back when,” Case said. “They called it the great migration – all the people from Iowa moved to California, and then when they retired they all moved back. And so, I got sucked along on that trip back.” Case was offered a theatre scholarship by Morningside College, one of the requirements of which was that he take a work-study job in the shop at the theatre department. “I would go there every afternoon, and they were like, ‘How do you know all this stuff?’ “‘Because I’ve been doing it because I was a baby,’” he said. After attending grad school at the University of Nebraska, Case took a job at the Omaha Community Playhouse, which is the largest community theatre in the country. “I was pretty happy there, but my alma mater called and said they were going to Spotlight On TIM CASE lose a position because they couldn’t fill it,” he said. Case ended up working there for three years. When a position at USD’s theatre department opened, he decided to take it. “The first job was to establish the program,” he said. “It existed on paper, but it didn’t have very many – if any – students. I think we had one student in the program. It didn’t have any structure, really.” A year was spent researching theatre programs at other schools, followed by the addition of classes and active recruiting. “Probably the first five years was nothing but program creation and nurturing, and during that time, we tried to do shows that were cutting-edge in terms of technology and things like that,” Case said. That type of work has continued over the years, one of the most recent examples being the department’s use of 3D design. Apart from teaching a variety of theatre and film classes, Case takes an active role in the productions mounted at USD, supervising set design, properties, painting and projections. Each show presents its own special challenges, and one of Case’s favorites in this regard was “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” which was produced in 2008. The play required several murders to take place onstage using guns fired at point-blank range. “We had to develop all these blood packs that were explosive,” he said. “We had a student who headed this up, but we all worked on it, and it was really amazing.” Another scene featured several characters’ bodies being sawed into pieces, which required duplicates to be made of the actors. “We actually used a formula that we found that was used to make the bodies in the Bela Lugosi ‘Dracula’ movie,” Case said. “There was a little document that was found that people had been using for years to make this gelatin head, and we used that formula. It was a lot of fun to put that together. … “To have the actual formula from that movie was really fun for me as a film buff,” he said. Case himself has worked in various capacities on a number of features and shorts, including casting, painting and art direction. “I’ve done several independent films, a lot of short films,” he said. “Basically I can do those and still do this. I can’t go away for two months on a shoot.” USD “does its students a great service” in maintaining an up-to-date theatre department, Case said. “We produce exactly what’s happening in the field today, so that students can just blend right into it (when they graduate),” he said. “I’m enjoying learning the technology and teaching the technology, knowing full well that they’re going to use it, and knowing full well that other schools aren’t teaching it.” Case lives with his wife Christine in Sioux City, IA. They have three children and three grandchildren. Public Utilities Commission warns consumers to protect wireless accounts PIERRE – The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission has learned of incidents involving fraudulent access of private wireless phone accounts and urges consumers to apply additional security measures to protect their accounts. Consumers have relayed to the PUC incidents of their wireless phone accounts being accessed by unauthorized persons from outside of South Dakota who have fraudulently used the accounts to acquire new devices. The cost of the devices is shown as a charge to the rightful account owner. These consumers have worked with their wireless phone provider to report the incidents, correct the billing charges and change personal identification numbers associated with accounts. The fraudulent activity is occurring predominantly on accounts that use the last four digits of the owner’s Social Security number as identification. 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